The Solitary Rambler

I was a great fan of the 1960’s cult TV show “The Prisoner” and during my few days touring Snowdonia I visit the wonderful Mediterranean style Portmeirion, the location used as “the village” in the TV series.....

Locations

Filmed in Portmeirion in the county of Gwynedd. Locations include Castell Deudraeth, Central Piazza, the Hotel Portmeirion and the Round House.

Background and production details

Thursday 8th October was the day I would be heading back home after my few days in North Wales, but I still wanted to make one more film in Snowdonia before driving back at the end of the day. This day was the best of my 3 days in the area as far as the weather was concerned, and having previously checked the forecast I had decided to film in a particular location for this sunny day, Portmeirion. I was really looking forward to making a film in the Portmeirion as I loved “The Prisoner”, which was filmed here in the 1960s, and the title of this film was practically ready made for me, “Prisoner in Portmeirion”!

The first location in Portmeirion was Castell Deudraeth, the building used as the hospital in “The Prisoner”. Heading into the village itself it was an absolute delight filming around all the locations I recognised from watching the TV series. There were a few places, unfortunately, where I couldn’t film, i.e. the bell tower, as these were signed off as “private”, so I’m guessing these parts were now used as holiday homes. Despite this I still captured some wonderfully colourful shots of Portmeirion to include the buildings and locations filmed in “The Prisoner”.

Walking down to Afon Dwyryd, where it is an estuary flowing towards the Irish Sea I filmed around the Hotel Portmeirion used as the old peoples’ home in the TV series, along with the nearby stone boat often seen in the programme. I also recorded a few shots on the beach as I followed the path around the part of the headland before making my way back to the village. During a break in filming I sat outside the Hotel and treated myself to a pint of cola, at a cost of £3.00!! Expense indeed, but to be fair I had already researched online before visiting Portmeirion so was aware of the café and hotel prices in the village. I completed a wonderful day’s filming at around 4.00pm before making my journey home.

​When I finally got round to editing this video in March 2016 I knew I wanted to feature some of the incidental music from “The Prisoner”, but with my own twist in addition to new completely music of my own. I recorded a few sequences of music from the TV series on my keyboard, some of which I tried to sound as close as possible to the original 60’s sound. My own compositions were also recorded with voices on my keyboard to sound similar to the TV series soundtrack.